A London council has urged thousands of residents to be “extra vigilant” when receiving calls, emails or text messages after confirming data was taken in a cyber attack.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), which has 147,500 residents, said some data was copied from its systems in an attack this week. The council said it believed the theft related to “historical data”, but was investigating whether it involved any personal or financial details of residents, customers or service users.
“On advice from the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), we are encouraging all residents, customers and service users to be extra vigilant when receiving calls, emails or text messages,” the council said.
Three London councils have been hit by cyber attacks this week, with RBKC and Westminster City Council saying multiple systems, including phone lines, were affected in both authorities. Hammersmith and Fulham boroughs were also affected and have said they are “working around the clock” to restore their systems.
Westminster said in a statement on Friday that the attack affected IT systems shared by all three councils. It said it was working with the UK government’s cybersecurity agency NCSC to maintain essential services.
RBKC said it was working with the NCSC, the National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police to identify the attackers. The council said it faced “significant disruption” for at least two weeks and was working to bring its systems back online after services were affected.
Public bodies and private businesses across the UK have been hit by ransomware attacks in recent years, where criminal gangs, usually based in the former Soviet Union, lock down the target’s IT systems with malware as well as extract the data. The gang members demand payment in cryptocurrency to decrypt the system and return the data.
Neither council has indicated whether ransomware was involved. Westminster City Council and Hammersmith and Fulham Borough have not confirmed whether data was stolen in their attacks. A ransomware attack on Hackney Council in 2020 accessed and encrypted 440,000 files, resulting in a rebuke from the UK’s data watchdog.
Councilor Elizabeth Campbell, Conservative leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, said warning residents that their data may have been taken was “the right thing to do”.
“All I know is that – as a resident – I would like to know this information as quickly as possible and then be able to make my own choices, follow the advice and protect myself if I deem necessary.”
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